August 12, 2025 • 18 mins
Raised in silence and control, Andrea carried abuse and shame — until she found healing through yoga, tantra, and self-love.
With Britta’s reflections, we explore how inner work, vulnerability, sexual abuse and embracing your feminine power can transform not only intimacy, but life itself.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome back to 34, the podcast where we explore intimacy not as
performance, but it's presence. Not it's something we do to each
other, but it's something we canCo create where we explore what
it truly means to be present in our bodies, in our relationships
(00:31):
and in the stories we carry. This is not a podcast about
technique, kink or sex tips, even though we'll touch on all
of these. At it's core, 34 is about
returning to the body, to the truth, to the breath we forgot
(00:52):
to feel because someone told us to be quiet or polite or pretty
or small. Today's story is a powerful one.
It's about Andrea, a woman of fire, softness, and sacred rage.
(01:12):
A woman with South American roots.
A woman raised in an environmentshaped by religious shame,
strict gender roles, and the unspoken rule that a woman's
body was never quite her own, where silence often spoke louder
than words, Andrea has experienced both spiritual
(01:32):
awakening and unspeakable harm. She survived sexual assault.
She's walked through numbness, and she's risen again and again,
not by pretending she was whole,but by daring to feel the places
that were broken. What she shares is not just a
story of survival. Her story is one of inner
(01:55):
strength, quite rebellion, and areturn to her own rhythm.
It's a story of reclamation, of turning shame into knowing and
silence into serenity. Healing begins the moment we
decide we are worthy of peace. Let's begin.
(02:25):
Andrea grew up in a religious household where modesty was law
and shame was stitched into everyday life.
Expressions of the body were either sinful or sacred, but
never safe. She was raised with rules, not
touch, obedience not expiration.Pleasure, if mentioned at all,
(02:50):
was always wrapped in sin. Her mother didn't speak of
bodies, her church didn't speak of desire, and her own voice got
lost somewhere in between. She learned early on that to be
desirable you had to be small, that to be loved you had to be
(03:12):
quiet. So she shrank in posture, in
hunger, in want. Andrea was 11, maybe 12, when
she first began to meditate, notbecause someone taught her, but
because she needed another path.She grew up surrounded by
(03:32):
religious dogma, shame around the body, and an invisible boar
between spirit and sensuality. So she sat quietly, searching
for peace, for breath, for a place inside her that felt like
her own. But that safety didn't come
easily. Her stepfather's words and
(03:55):
actions left invisible bruises that took years to name.
The place that should have offered comfort became a place
of tension, fear, and confusion.In her larger family, somewhat
older, someone trusted began to pay her the wrong kind of
attention. Not with violence, but with
(04:16):
manipulation. Words that blurred boundaries,
touches that confused her body. She didn't have the language for
then, but today she calls it forwhat it was, Grooming.
Still, she longed to be loved, to be seen.
As she entered adulthood, Andreatried to create connection,
(04:39):
reaching for something real. She chose her first partner with
care and insight, on a trip where for a moment she felt
free, but it wasn't someone she would build a future with.
In another relationship. She became a mother, but what
she hoped would be a stable foundation began to crumble.
(05:01):
Not from noise but from silence.And at night, when her son lay
sleeping beside them, her partner would reach for her, not
with love, not with tenderness, but with entitlement, as if her
body was still his, even when her soul had withdrawn.
(05:22):
She would freeze, dissociate, goquiet.
One morning, she woke up with him inside her, and something
inside her finally said no more.It wasn't just the ACT, it was
the stealing of presence, the assumption that she had no
(05:43):
voice. And that's when the path back
began. Healing didn't come overnight,
but it started with movement, with breath, with yoga.
Not not as exercise, but as remembering.
Andrea learnt to inhabit her body again, to stretch the
(06:04):
tension, to cry in child's pose,to shake with anger and funnily
let it pass. And then came Tantra.
Not the over sexualized version on Instagram, but the real work,
the inner journey, the stillness, the sacredness of
sensation. She found teachers who didn't
(06:26):
ask her to be anyone but herself.
She began to ask what do I want?What does my body long for?
Not with what I have been taughtto give, but what I've never
dared to receive. She realised that safety was not
a place, but a state of being. That wholeness was not about
(06:50):
fixing, but about remembering who she had been all along.
She began to live in her body again, not as something to be
judged, but as something sacred.Andrea's sensuality didn't come
rushing back. It came in waves, in small
(07:11):
moments when she dared to stay present, when she allowed
herself to moan without guilt, to explore without shame.
She lit candles, touched herselfslowly, not for release but for
reconnection. Some days she cried instead of
(07:32):
coming. Other days she laughed from the
pure surprise of feeling pleasure again.
She explored breath work, learned how to speak her needs,
and gradually she built a map, not of technique, but of truth.
The moment she remembers the most.
(07:53):
The first time she made love after reclaiming her body and
actually woke up with someone still inside her.
But this time, it wasn't assault.
It was presence. It was safety.
It was everything she had once been denied.
Andrea now stands in her full light, not healed in every way,
(08:14):
but alive in every way. She teaches other women now.
She speaks about trauma, embodiment, sensuality, and most
of all about the importance of not hiding.
She says your voice is not too much, your desire is not
dangerous. Your truth will not break the
(08:36):
ones meant to hold you. She allowed herself to be held,
seen and supported, and in that space she found something even
deeper than resilience. She found peace.
She didn't need to perform strength anymore.
She could simply be. She could say yes, she could say
(08:59):
no, and both would be honoured. She stopped asking if she was
too much. She started asking if the world
could meet her exactly as she was.
Andrea is not just a survivor, she's a mirror to every woman
who is frozen in the dark and still dare to search for the
(09:21):
light. So with that, to Andrea, and to
every other person who has everyquestion their worth, their
voice, their story. You're not too loud.
You're not too sensitive, you'renot too intense.
You're exactly who you were meant to be before the world
(09:43):
told you to shrink. You're still here, you're
healing, and you're not alone. So again, before you wrap up, I
want to welcome back Rita Kunsa,who's a sexologist, relationship
and intimacy coach. And as we know, she adds a very
(10:07):
nice deeper layer to these conversations.
And she's been listening to thisstory about Andrea as well.
Nice to have you back, Rita. Hi, Henrik.
So what are your key takeaways from the story about Andrea?
For me, Andrea's story represents also a very, very
(10:30):
common story whom I see in many of my clients actually.
And it's the story about religious or cultural deep
rooted shaming of sexuality in the 1st place.
Then also the story of abuse, abusive relationship patterns.
(10:50):
And I mean, it's a very common thing for women, but I'm not, I,
I will never get tired to also point out that for a lot of men,
there is this layer of sexual abuse and it's not as often
talked about in our culture. And so if you have experienced
this in your upbringing, this strong, be it a religious or
(11:12):
cultural shaming of pleasure of yeah, sexuality, sensuality,
it's a pretty difficult point tostart at aiming for a liberated
and pleasurable sexuality. Exactly.
And what do you think men can learn from this tools and become
(11:35):
better partners and meet the women in a better way?
Well, if if you're a man, if you're a heterosexual man and
you're dating women, you will meet a lot of women who have a
history of sexual assault. That's probably one thing that
you can take away from it because often I have clients and
(11:55):
they're like, wow, I always seemto attract women who have had
some history of, yeah, sexual trauma.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry, but that's that's a high
percentage of women who have hadprobably not as extreme
situations as Andrea. Yeah, she had this in her closer
(12:15):
family circle. I think you said yeah, or, and,
but still, to some degree, most women have experienced it and
it's something sort of to get tobe, to see it as it is and, and
to deal with it. And then also, I mean, what men
also can learn from this is it'snot.
(12:37):
Of course, if you have a partnerwho has gone through this, there
are things you can do to help her.
But in the end, it's also about her choosing to, to embark on
this journey as Andrea did, right?
I mean, she went for her healingjourney, she went for yoga,
breathing, reconnecting with herbody, tantric, the tantric
journey. And so of course, as a partner,
(13:02):
you will be you, you can help her with that, you can support
her with that. But on a deeper level, it's it's
also her decision to want to meet herself in that.
Yeah, I know. But for me, I think one thing
maybe I'm thinking of as well ishow men show up in a better way
(13:22):
for women in general. Because as you said, there are
so many women who's been going through this or experienced
these type of sexual assaults. First of all, I would say that
it's not OK in that sense, but also then how much better the
relationship for you as a man aswell As for the woman will be
when you're meeting each other in a nicer way.
(13:44):
And a loving and compassionate and I mean, we always keep
repeating it, but this being present with what is and it's
really a skill you can learn. One thing I want to add, though,
at this moment, Henrik, is I think it's really important as a
man to not feel guilty. Because I've also met men who
sort of started to feel the shame and guilt for being a man
(14:05):
in a culture where there has been, you know, a lot of
conflicts around. And and it's not sort of you're
you're not guilty. Yeah.
So you, you don't help anybody. You don't help your partner by
feeling guilty for something that you haven't done.
But then, of course, it's to really see as a woman or a man,
(14:28):
how can I become a better partner in general?
How can I become a better person?
And how I can I prevent these things from happening, be it by
becoming more present around those dynamics being be it like
for Andrea as a woman to learning, set boundaries,
communicate my truth. Yeah, it's very important.
(14:53):
And then what can women take with them from Andrea's journey
for themselves as well as in therelationships they're in?
Yeah. So again, that's I think the
deepest thing that the most important message is that
healing is possible. So if you if you've experienced
this, like it's not your fault. I mean it's, it's really it's as
(15:19):
I said in the beginning, it's a difficult starting point because
we tend to compare ourselves to other people and how they are
doing on their journey. And let me tell you, if you
started with a strong religious upbringing and a lot of shame
around sexuality, that's a difficult starting point to
start with. If you've experienced sexual
(15:41):
assault, some some kind of sexual trauma in your it doesn't
matter as if as a child it's, it's really, it's sort of very
bad. But also as a young woman, as an
adult woman, it doesn't matter. It's, it's something, it's a, it
leaves a, it can leave, it can leave a deep imprint, but you
(16:02):
can change. It's it's basically pleasure is
the antidote to trauma. Which is a nice way to look at
it. And shame actually will be one
of the upcoming themes in quite a few of the episodes we're
going to be listening to becauseit's something we've I've seen
now with no matter which religion or religious upbringing
(16:23):
you have, whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jew or
something, it's sort of something that is prevailing,
particularly in the Abrahamic religions, if you will, where
shame is sort of something that is being opposed to, opposed on
women in general particularly, but also on men in many ways,
right? It's a deep thing about
(16:44):
monotheistic relation religions that, yeah, you have this shame,
and it's also a way of controlling people and keeping
them small. And if you breakthrough the
patterns of shame, which is something is inherent wrong with
me, and guilt, which is about I have done something that is
considered wrong. On your path to liberation, to
(17:06):
sexual liberation, you will haveto face these things.
And if you, yeah, sort of not breakthrough, but if you
consistently change it, it will make you a so much happier and
also freer person. I agree on that.
Thank you so much, Prita. Thank you.
(17:32):
In the book version of 34, Andrea's chapter goes even
deeper. It follows her full emotional
arc, from silence to storm to serenity.
But here we hold the essence. Let it meet something inside
you. In our next episode, we meet
(17:53):
Sarah and Peter, two people who turned their relationship into a
living practise of presence. We'll hear how trust attention
in daily rituals become their most powerful form of
connection. Until then, take a breath, be
gentle. You are already enough.
Welcome back to 34, the podcast where we explore intimacy not as
performance, but it's presence. Not it's something we do to each
other, but it's something we canCo create where we explore what
it truly means to be present in our bodies, in our relationships
(00:31):
and in the stories we carry. This is not a podcast about
technique, kink or sex tips, even though we'll touch on all
of these. At it's core, 34 is about
returning to the body, to the truth, to the breath we forgot
(00:52):
to feel because someone told us to be quiet or polite or pretty
or small. Today's story is a powerful one.
It's about Andrea, a woman of fire, softness, and sacred rage.
(01:12):
A woman with South American roots.
A woman raised in an environmentshaped by religious shame,
strict gender roles, and the unspoken rule that a woman's
body was never quite her own, where silence often spoke louder
than words, Andrea has experienced both spiritual
(01:32):
awakening and unspeakable harm. She survived sexual assault.
She's walked through numbness, and she's risen again and again,
not by pretending she was whole,but by daring to feel the places
that were broken. What she shares is not just a
story of survival. Her story is one of inner
(01:55):
strength, quite rebellion, and areturn to her own rhythm.
It's a story of reclamation, of turning shame into knowing and
silence into serenity. Healing begins the moment we
decide we are worthy of peace. Let's begin.
(02:25):
Andrea grew up in a religious household where modesty was law
and shame was stitched into everyday life.
Expressions of the body were either sinful or sacred, but
never safe. She was raised with rules, not
touch, obedience not expiration.Pleasure, if mentioned at all,
(02:50):
was always wrapped in sin. Her mother didn't speak of
bodies, her church didn't speak of desire, and her own voice got
lost somewhere in between. She learned early on that to be
desirable you had to be small, that to be loved you had to be
(03:12):
quiet. So she shrank in posture, in
hunger, in want. Andrea was 11, maybe 12, when
she first began to meditate, notbecause someone taught her, but
because she needed another path.She grew up surrounded by
(03:32):
religious dogma, shame around the body, and an invisible boar
between spirit and sensuality. So she sat quietly, searching
for peace, for breath, for a place inside her that felt like
her own. But that safety didn't come
easily. Her stepfather's words and
(03:55):
actions left invisible bruises that took years to name.
The place that should have offered comfort became a place
of tension, fear, and confusion.In her larger family, somewhat
older, someone trusted began to pay her the wrong kind of
attention. Not with violence, but with
(04:16):
manipulation. Words that blurred boundaries,
touches that confused her body. She didn't have the language for
then, but today she calls it forwhat it was, Grooming.
Still, she longed to be loved, to be seen.
As she entered adulthood, Andreatried to create connection,
(04:39):
reaching for something real. She chose her first partner with
care and insight, on a trip where for a moment she felt
free, but it wasn't someone she would build a future with.
In another relationship. She became a mother, but what
she hoped would be a stable foundation began to crumble.
(05:01):
Not from noise but from silence.And at night, when her son lay
sleeping beside them, her partner would reach for her, not
with love, not with tenderness, but with entitlement, as if her
body was still his, even when her soul had withdrawn.
(05:22):
She would freeze, dissociate, goquiet.
One morning, she woke up with him inside her, and something
inside her finally said no more.It wasn't just the ACT, it was
the stealing of presence, the assumption that she had no
(05:43):
voice. And that's when the path back
began. Healing didn't come overnight,
but it started with movement, with breath, with yoga.
Not not as exercise, but as remembering.
Andrea learnt to inhabit her body again, to stretch the
(06:04):
tension, to cry in child's pose,to shake with anger and funnily
let it pass. And then came Tantra.
Not the over sexualized version on Instagram, but the real work,
the inner journey, the stillness, the sacredness of
sensation. She found teachers who didn't
(06:26):
ask her to be anyone but herself.
She began to ask what do I want?What does my body long for?
Not with what I have been taughtto give, but what I've never
dared to receive. She realised that safety was not
a place, but a state of being. That wholeness was not about
(06:50):
fixing, but about remembering who she had been all along.
She began to live in her body again, not as something to be
judged, but as something sacred.Andrea's sensuality didn't come
rushing back. It came in waves, in small
(07:11):
moments when she dared to stay present, when she allowed
herself to moan without guilt, to explore without shame.
She lit candles, touched herselfslowly, not for release but for
reconnection. Some days she cried instead of
(07:32):
coming. Other days she laughed from the
pure surprise of feeling pleasure again.
She explored breath work, learned how to speak her needs,
and gradually she built a map, not of technique, but of truth.
The moment she remembers the most.
(07:53):
The first time she made love after reclaiming her body and
actually woke up with someone still inside her.
But this time, it wasn't assault.
It was presence. It was safety.
It was everything she had once been denied.
Andrea now stands in her full light, not healed in every way,
(08:14):
but alive in every way. She teaches other women now.
She speaks about trauma, embodiment, sensuality, and most
of all about the importance of not hiding.
She says your voice is not too much, your desire is not
dangerous. Your truth will not break the
(08:36):
ones meant to hold you. She allowed herself to be held,
seen and supported, and in that space she found something even
deeper than resilience. She found peace.
She didn't need to perform strength anymore.
She could simply be. She could say yes, she could say
(08:59):
no, and both would be honoured. She stopped asking if she was
too much. She started asking if the world
could meet her exactly as she was.
Andrea is not just a survivor, she's a mirror to every woman
who is frozen in the dark and still dare to search for the
(09:21):
light. So with that, to Andrea, and to
every other person who has everyquestion their worth, their
voice, their story. You're not too loud.
You're not too sensitive, you'renot too intense.
You're exactly who you were meant to be before the world
(09:43):
told you to shrink. You're still here, you're
healing, and you're not alone. So again, before you wrap up, I
want to welcome back Rita Kunsa,who's a sexologist, relationship
and intimacy coach. And as we know, she adds a very
(10:07):
nice deeper layer to these conversations.
And she's been listening to thisstory about Andrea as well.
Nice to have you back, Rita. Hi, Henrik.
So what are your key takeaways from the story about Andrea?
For me, Andrea's story represents also a very, very
(10:30):
common story whom I see in many of my clients actually.
And it's the story about religious or cultural deep
rooted shaming of sexuality in the 1st place.
Then also the story of abuse, abusive relationship patterns.
(10:50):
And I mean, it's a very common thing for women, but I'm not, I,
I will never get tired to also point out that for a lot of men,
there is this layer of sexual abuse and it's not as often
talked about in our culture. And so if you have experienced
this in your upbringing, this strong, be it a religious or
(11:12):
cultural shaming of pleasure of yeah, sexuality, sensuality,
it's a pretty difficult point tostart at aiming for a liberated
and pleasurable sexuality. Exactly.
And what do you think men can learn from this tools and become
(11:35):
better partners and meet the women in a better way?
Well, if if you're a man, if you're a heterosexual man and
you're dating women, you will meet a lot of women who have a
history of sexual assault. That's probably one thing that
you can take away from it because often I have clients and
(11:55):
they're like, wow, I always seemto attract women who have had
some history of, yeah, sexual trauma.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry, but that's that's a high
percentage of women who have hadprobably not as extreme
situations as Andrea. Yeah, she had this in her closer
(12:15):
family circle. I think you said yeah, or, and,
but still, to some degree, most women have experienced it and
it's something sort of to get tobe, to see it as it is and, and
to deal with it. And then also, I mean, what men
also can learn from this is it'snot.
(12:37):
Of course, if you have a partnerwho has gone through this, there
are things you can do to help her.
But in the end, it's also about her choosing to, to embark on
this journey as Andrea did, right?
I mean, she went for her healingjourney, she went for yoga,
breathing, reconnecting with herbody, tantric, the tantric
journey. And so of course, as a partner,
(13:02):
you will be you, you can help her with that, you can support
her with that. But on a deeper level, it's it's
also her decision to want to meet herself in that.
Yeah, I know. But for me, I think one thing
maybe I'm thinking of as well ishow men show up in a better way
(13:22):
for women in general. Because as you said, there are
so many women who's been going through this or experienced
these type of sexual assaults. First of all, I would say that
it's not OK in that sense, but also then how much better the
relationship for you as a man aswell As for the woman will be
when you're meeting each other in a nicer way.
(13:44):
And a loving and compassionate and I mean, we always keep
repeating it, but this being present with what is and it's
really a skill you can learn. One thing I want to add, though,
at this moment, Henrik, is I think it's really important as a
man to not feel guilty. Because I've also met men who
sort of started to feel the shame and guilt for being a man
(14:05):
in a culture where there has been, you know, a lot of
conflicts around. And and it's not sort of you're
you're not guilty. Yeah.
So you, you don't help anybody. You don't help your partner by
feeling guilty for something that you haven't done.
But then, of course, it's to really see as a woman or a man,
(14:28):
how can I become a better partner in general?
How can I become a better person?
And how I can I prevent these things from happening, be it by
becoming more present around those dynamics being be it like
for Andrea as a woman to learning, set boundaries,
communicate my truth. Yeah, it's very important.
(14:53):
And then what can women take with them from Andrea's journey
for themselves as well as in therelationships they're in?
Yeah. So again, that's I think the
deepest thing that the most important message is that
healing is possible. So if you if you've experienced
this, like it's not your fault. I mean it's, it's really it's as
(15:19):
I said in the beginning, it's a difficult starting point because
we tend to compare ourselves to other people and how they are
doing on their journey. And let me tell you, if you
started with a strong religious upbringing and a lot of shame
around sexuality, that's a difficult starting point to
start with. If you've experienced sexual
(15:41):
assault, some some kind of sexual trauma in your it doesn't
matter as if as a child it's, it's really, it's sort of very
bad. But also as a young woman, as an
adult woman, it doesn't matter. It's, it's something, it's a, it
leaves a, it can leave, it can leave a deep imprint, but you
(16:02):
can change. It's it's basically pleasure is
the antidote to trauma. Which is a nice way to look at
it. And shame actually will be one
of the upcoming themes in quite a few of the episodes we're
going to be listening to becauseit's something we've I've seen
now with no matter which religion or religious upbringing
(16:23):
you have, whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jew or
something, it's sort of something that is prevailing,
particularly in the Abrahamic religions, if you will, where
shame is sort of something that is being opposed to, opposed on
women in general particularly, but also on men in many ways,
right? It's a deep thing about
(16:44):
monotheistic relation religions that, yeah, you have this shame,
and it's also a way of controlling people and keeping
them small. And if you breakthrough the
patterns of shame, which is something is inherent wrong with
me, and guilt, which is about I have done something that is
considered wrong. On your path to liberation, to
(17:06):
sexual liberation, you will haveto face these things.
And if you, yeah, sort of not breakthrough, but if you
consistently change it, it will make you a so much happier and
also freer person. I agree on that.
Thank you so much, Prita. Thank you.
(17:32):
In the book version of 34, Andrea's chapter goes even
deeper. It follows her full emotional
arc, from silence to storm to serenity.
But here we hold the essence. Let it meet something inside
you. In our next episode, we meet
(17:53):
Sarah and Peter, two people who turned their relationship into a
living practise of presence. We'll hear how trust attention
in daily rituals become their most powerful form of
connection. Until then, take a breath, be
gentle. You are already enough.
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